 Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential, my name is Lee Fuge and I'm here today with MGRmusic.com and in this lesson we're going to look at the minor pentatonic scale. So if you're just starting out with playing guitar and you're wondering how all your favorite guitar players fly around the fretboard and play a ton of different really great notes there is a bit of a formula you guys can follow and this falls into a scale. So the best place to start with scales is to learn a scale called the minor pentatonic scale. So I will start out by just showing you the shape of the scale and how you can play this and then we'll dig a little bit into the theory side of it so when you're ready to go to that next level with understanding what you're doing you can refer back to that theory section. All the tones you hear in this video today are coming from the 20 watt IDCore V3 amp that you see behind me there which is mic'd with a Luit Audio LCT 440 condenser microphone. I've currently got the amp set on the clean warm voice with the ISF all the way to the American side and I've got a whole reverb for some space. So much like chords scales also have a note based name. This is dependent on where the scale starts so this is known as the root note of the scale. If you've learned bar chords you'll already know that the bar chord is determined by the first note of the chord. So in this case you need to know the notes along your low E string so if you haven't already started doing that it's worth starting out. There's a little diagram in the written section on the Blackstar website which we'll go into a bit more detail about where certain notes are on the low E string so you can start learning the positions for this scale. So start off we'll do this in the key of A minor. So this is going to be the A minor pentatonic scale so the first thing I'm going to do is play an A note which is the fifth fret of the low E string. Next note I want to play is a C note which is the eighth fret of the low E string. Then I'm going to play a D note which is the fifth fret of the A string followed by an E note at the seventh fret and the final note is the G note which is the fifth fret of the D string. So you'll notice I only played five notes there in the name pentatonic pent meaning five so in this scale there are actually only five different notes we need to be aware of. In the key of A minor it's A C D E and G. This changes in different keys but obviously we'll go into that later on in the video. So that was the first octave of the scale. As we go through the rest of the scale what we're essentially doing is repeating those notes in a higher octave. So the second octave will start from this A note here on the seventh fret of the D string followed by a C and a D note on the fifth and seventh of the G. Then we've got an E and a G on the fifth and eighth frets of the B. So there's the second octave again. We also got one more A on the fifth fret of the high E string and a C on the eighth fret. So here's the entire scale ascending and descending. So the great thing with pentatonic scales once you know the notes on the low E string of the guitar is that you can move them around very easily depending on what root note you start from. So I started from an A note there so that is an A minor pentatonic but if I know the notes on the low E string and I start from the eighth fret which is a C that gives me a C minor pentatonic. So the reason that piece of advice is important is because when you start to build your own guitar patterns and you're learning lead guitar you can easily move things around just by knowing where to place that scale. There are other shapes of the scale but for now we'll just focus on this shape which is known as the first shape. So if we're going to talk about the theory of this we need to first understand what goes into making this scale. So I said there were five notes. These notes are determined by what is known as intervals and interval is a measurement of distance between one note and another and it's also a numbering system we use in music theory. So all of this is going to be derived from a scale called the major scale. So you're going to be using this a lot as you learn music theory. So I will very quickly talk to you about how the major scale is going to work. This is the major scale in A. So that was just one octave of it but in a nutshell we've got eight different notes there. If we give each one of those notes a number we get this. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and then eight. The eighth note is actually an octave higher than the first note so technically that would also be classed as one again. So really there's seven notes here plus an octave. The reason this is important is because knowing this allows us to work out other scales. There are plenty of other things we can build from the major scale as well but for now we'll just focus on building a pentatonic scale. So I told you earlier on that the five notes we're playing are A, C, D, E and G but some of those notes don't appear in the A major scale. The notes of the A major scale are A, B, C sharp, D and E, F sharp and G sharp and then back to A. So in my minor pentatonic scale I need a C note and I need a G note so there are a couple of alterations I need to make to this scale. So I said we would refer to those as a numbering system, numbers one through seven. This is really important because now we're going to talk about the intervals of the minor pentatonic scale. So instead of counting one through seven the intervals we now need are one, flat three, four, five and flat seven. So from the major scale A is a consistent note there because that's the one, still an A. Now my third note of my major scale is a C sharp but I said in my minor pentatonic I need a C but I also just said I need a flat three so what I can do is to flatten this three I can just take it down one fret does give me a C note but this C is just a bit easier for me to play here at the eighth fret so A, C, one, flat three. Fourth and fifth notes of my major scale are D and E so those are fine those are D and E. The seventh note of my major scale was a G sharp. I said I needed a G but I also mentioned flat seven so I'm going to flatten this seven down a fret and then I get my G so one, three, four, five and flat seven. In the second octave it's exactly the same so one, flat three and four, five and flat seven and then one and flat three. So all I'm doing there is I'm taking those five intervals and I'm just repeating them through the octaves. You can use this theory knowledge to work out minor pentatonic scales in any other key as long as you use the major scale in that key. Now you don't need to know the whole major scale for this you just need to know that basic shape that I played so if I was going to work out the C minor pentatonic I would play the C major scale from the eighth fret so I've already numbered that one through seven so I know where my intervals are now I just need to assign notes to that so C and D, E, F and G, A, B and C. So there again one is my C note so that's fine. The third of the C major scale was this E note here but I need to flatten that to a D sharp but I'm going to move that to the pentatonic position that I showed you so there's my one and flat three. My four and five are F and G so those that find those can stay where they are. The seven of my C major scale is a B so I need to flatten that now to an A sharp so they're on the notes of my C minor pentatonic C and D sharp, F and G and A sharp. So you can use that interval knowledge there to work out those scale shapes in other keys or you can just simply remember the shape and move it around based on the root note. Now remember like I said it's very important to know what the notes along the low E string are so you know where to place these scale shapes so I showed you A being at the fifth fret and C being at the eighth fret. If you know the notes along that string you can work this out in any key so for instance if I wrote that from the third fret it's G minor. So once you've learnt the shape of that scale then it's time to practice it so a great way is to start just by playing it ascending and descending with alternate picking. Alternate picking very early on is very very important it gets you used to playing in a more free-form way. If you just down pick it's going to be harder to build up speed later on so get used to playing down and up on each string. When it comes to playing lead guitar you don't often play scales just up and down like that so a really great way to break this up is to just group the scale into some different groupings. I like to do things in groups of six I think this is a great way to build your coordination but also get you out of that habit early on of playing scales in this linear up and down fashion so try this one out as well take your time with it slow it right down before you start. All I'm doing there is essentially just ascending the scale six notes then I'm coming back to the A string and ascending six notes from there then from the D then from the G and then I'm doing the same descending ascending three and then going back one and doing it again or the other way around descending three going back one descending three and so on like I said that just breaks you out of the habit of playing the scale in a linear fashion as well and it's great for your picking and your fretting hand coordination too that's a really fun one to work on as you start to develop your speed and dexterity with scale playing. Thank you guys so much for watching I hope you've enjoyed this little lesson on the minor pentatonic scale let us know down below in the comments how you've gotten on with this and if you've started to use these exercises and start your journey on the road to lead guitar. If there are any other topics you'd like to see us create these little lesson videos about please let us know down below in the comments whatever the topic is we'd love to hear what you guys want to learn with your black star products. If anyone out there is looking for a guitar teacher please head over to mgrmusic.com and check out the database of music teachers all around the country waiting to take you guys to that next level. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you soon.